What’s interesting is how similar–in fact, how completely indistinguishable–Breivik’s book is from any of the multitude of “counter-jihad” websites such as Robert Spencer’s Jihad Watch and Pamela Geller’s Atlas Shrugs.
Book: 2083: A European Declaration of Independence
Author: Andrew Berwick, real name Anders Behring Breivik
Type of Book: Paranoid manifesto, conspiracy theory
Why Do I Consider This Book Odd: Sigh…
Availability: It’s all over the Internet.
Comments: When I learned that the Norway mass murderer had salted his manifesto all over the Internet shortly before he went on his rampage, I knew I was going to have to read it. After all, I read odd books. And more to the point, I have an unapologetic interest in the aberrant mind. From all the commentary I read online and from news reports, Anders Behring Breivik was a fundamentalist Christian, he was a fascist, he was a racist, he was an Aryan supremacist, he hated Muslims, he was a loner, he was a part of a larger anti-Islam group, he was a lunatic, he was a mastermind – he was all kinds of inconsistent things and I wondered what was correct and what was the typical media rush to judgment. I wondered if the people who were postulating about him and his sources had actually read the manifesto.
So I read it. Every last word. I will admit that at about page 1200 things at times got a little vague for me. Reading every word of this disjointed, strange monster of a manuscript would make even an Adderall addict bleary. I also admit that after a while, all the articles explaining the horrors of Islam and all the terrible things Muslims have done wore a bit thin. I have a feeling that were I forced to read some of them again, it would be like I was reading them for the first time. That’s okay because all that “evidence” was not likely to be of much interest to me anyway. It’s largely unimportant because I examined this manifesto from the perspective of a person interested in strange minds and conspiracy theory. On both fronts, this manifesto was quite interesting.
Strangely, Anders Behring Breivik (to be called ABB from here on out) is not the most interesting part of this manifesto. Rather, it was the cast of characters who led him to the conclusions he reached and provided confirmation for his strange ideas. Most notable is Fjordman. So notable is Fjordman that I intend to devote two entries to discussing him. Initially, I declared Fjordman to be a complete asshole, and parts of that assessment still seem true, but as I reread and wrote my discussion, I began to find him pitiable. Not pitiful, but definitely pitiable.
Fjordman, who revealed his identity recently as Peder Jensen, a 36-year-old man who seems largely unremarkable, greatly inspired ABB’s thoughts and the terrible rampage that killed 77 people. Because Fjordman influenced many of ABB’s ideas, it seems logical to me to discuss him first. You see, though much of this manifesto consists of articles from other writers, the bulk of the articles came from Fjordman. If you have not read or browsed the manifesto, many articles from anti-Islamists are reproduced in full in the manifesto. Part two of this three-part manifesto was almost a static wiki of articles from other people. Though my eyes admittedly glazed over at times, I believe I counted 40 articles from Fjordman reproduced throughout the 1500 pages. Though there are articles from other writers (one of them a hilarious pearl-clutching treatise on the horrors of rap music), Fjordman’s words take up the most space and show a very clear path of how his words affected ABB. Though there are theories about a Brit in Malta who may have influenced ABB’s rampage, the fact is Fjordman’s paranoiac and violent rhetoric influenced ABB’s mindset and his plans more than any other writer or thinker. In fact, the subtitle of this manifesto comes from the title of one of Fjordman’s articles, and the date of 2083 seems very much influenced by estimates that Fjordman posits about the decline of Europe if Muslim immigration is not stopped soon. So logically, for me at any rate, to understand ABB, we first must talk about Fjordman’s articles and the part they played in ABB’s anti-Muslim fears.
Before you read part one of my discussion about Fjordman, there are some things I would like to share with you, gentle reader. Unpleasant things. Of course, I will never not be a little shocked when I discover a whole mess of people willing to accept conspiracy theory as irrevocable fact. I may devote my life to reading books about conspiracy theory, but it is unsettling when it hits home how deeply people can believe in it. It was shocking to realize that there are people who take the word of Bat Ye’or, the woman responsible for creating what I like to call The Protocols of the Elders of Mecca, as historical truth. It was horrifying to realize that people like Diana West (ahahahaha!), Daniel Pipes, and Robert Spencer are not laughed out of every quarter of contemporary political thought. It was disgusting to realize that there are no depths too low for the likes of Glenn Beck, Pamela Geller and Debbie Schlussel to sink as they try desperately to keep their names and ideas relevant in the minds of those who live and breathe race hate and bigotry.
But as unpleasant as all of this is, it is important that we understand how common conspiracy theory is in some form or other for a good many people in this world. For many the natural impulse is to dismiss ABB as a crazy man, and we dismiss him as a lunatic at our own risk because if he is a lunatic, so are many, many others. It is hardwired into the human brain to believe strange things, I think, and it’s hard to look at a man like ABB and realize that he is just one of many, a man who is different solely because he took things just one step further. That is why I ultimately feel pity for Fjordman. Fjordman, a True Believer in Bat Ye’or’s Eurabia conspiracy theory was building castles in the air via his online essays, never once thinking that his words, taken at face value, could have been seen as a call to arms.
We have a vested interest in dismissing all violence as crazy, labeling people like ABB as The Other, but his views are derived from other people and are influencing other people even after anyone with common decency would dismiss him. Killing innocent teenagers for a bizarre political and social agenda should have rendered ABB’s ideas untouchable for anyone with sense and a conscience – Fjordman is appalled by what happened on Utøya – but there is a fringe element who see what ABB did as being the work of a patriot. Think I’m exaggerating? I don’t recommend visiting Pamela Geller or Debbie Schlussel’s sites because if you do, you are rewarding their dreadful antics to draw attention to themselves. Rather, check out the analysis of some of these people on sites like Loon Watch, Spencer Watch, and, interestingly enough, Little Green Footballs. (It had been years since I had visited Little Green Footballs. Last time I visited the site, it was a hive of scum and villainy. Discovering the site is no longer devoted to race hate and biogtry was perhaps the sole pleasant element to come from reading 2083.)
Before I begin my discussion of 2083, I need to make it clear, very clear, that I am not discussing any specifics of the immigration situations in other countries or the specifics of Muslim immigration in Europe. I am not qualified to discuss it and I have no interest running to ground all of the statistics, determining what information is sound and what information is not. But even though the sites I have read that discussed some elements of 2083 focus solely on the question of Islamic immigration, there is so much more than that to be found in 2083. So much, in fact, that what began as just another of my long-winded looks at strange writings turned into what I think will be a four part series: two entries about Fjordman and two entries about ABB.
But being who I am, only part of the manifesto interested me. If you want a hard political look at Muslim immigration and the social implications of it, there are plenty of political sites on both sides of the issue to accommodate you. My examination of Fjordman will look at his beliefs and an analysis of his writing. My examination of ABB will be to look at his plans and his theories, and some postulation about his brain because I cannot resist the urge to armchair psychoanalyze him. And it should be mentioned that I am not going to stray from the text. Everything I discuss about either man comes directly from 2083, and to make it clear, every word from Fjordman comes from articles that ABB found so important that he reproduced them in full in 2083. I also will end up snarking some because, given the text we are discussing, how can I not? Some ideas, even those that lead to tragedy, have an arrogant comedy in them that cannot be ignored by a woman who has a black belt in sarcasm.
So begins Part One: Fjordman.
2083, though categorized into three sections, is a mess in terms of coherence. So discussing the book chronologically is impossible for me. Instead, I am going to write in categories, first about the elements of the book that are most important in understanding the Eurabia conspiracy theory, Fjordman’s distaste for Muslims, and understanding how Fjordman’s words, however unintentionally on his part, could have inspired violence.
It’s also important to note two things before I begin. Fjordman and ABB are not native English speakers, so I will not be noting any usage errors in their writing. To include the traditional [sic] would have been time-consuming and more than a little pedantic had I been consistent. Second, if there are any errors in the way book names are presented or any other formatting differences between the original text and my quotes, assume those errors are mine. I copied from a PDF into Word then into WordPress and I can imagine some things got lost in the transfers.
So let’s begin and have a look at Fjordman, the man who influenced a mass murderer.
The Eurabia Conspiracy Theory
I want to start with the whole Eurabia theory because if we really want to assign blame for what happened in Norway, the blame begins and ends with ABB. Full stop. Non-negotiable. But at the same time, it is not hard to see how it is that conspiracy theory can lead a mind utterly astray. If Fjordman is the man who influenced ABB, then Bat Ye’or is the woman who influenced all of those who believe that there is a master plan to sell out Europe wholesale to the Muslims.
Fjordman is a true believer in Bat Ye’or’s theory of Eurabia, wherein Marxism, political correctness, cultural relativism (routinely called multiculturalism), traitor governments and the EU have collided and colluded to permit an Islamic invasion that will wipe out Western civilization. Here’s a small sample of what Bat Ye’or believes and has written about, as described by Fjordman on page 281:
In an interview with Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Bat Ye’or explained how French President Charles de Gaulle, disappointed by the loss of the French colonies in Africa and the Middle East as well as with France’s waning influence in the international arena, decided in the 1960′s to create a strategic alliance with the Arab and Muslim world to compete with the dominance of the United States and the Soviet Union.
“This is a matter of a total transformation of Europe, which is the result of an intentional policy,” said Bat Ye’or. “We are now heading towards a total change in Europe, which will be more and more Islamicised and will become a political satellite of the Arab and Muslim world. The European leaders have decided on an alliance with the Arab world, through which they have committed to accept the Arab and Muslim approach toward the United States and Israel. This is not only with respect to foreign policy, but also on issues engaging European society from within, such as immigration, the integration of the immigrants and the idea that Islam is part of Europe.”
To sum up, France tried to ally themselves with the Muslims as a counter-balance to the Soviets and now, as a result, all European leaders have an alliance with the Muslim world that affects policies toward the USA and Israel and will result in the West becoming Islamic satellite nations.
From page 283, we get the following two quotes:
A wide-ranging policy was sketched out. It entailed a symbiosis of Europe with the Muslim Arab countries that would endow Europe – and especially France, the project’s prime mover – with a weight and a prestige to rival that of the United States. This policy was undertaken quite discreetly, and well outside of official treaties, using the innocent sounding name of the Euro-Arab Dialogue. The organisation functioned under the auspices of European government ministers, working in close association with their Arab counterparts, and with the representatives of the European Commission and the Arab League. The goal was the creation of a pan-Mediterranean entity, permitting the free circulation both of men and of goods.
European leaders went behind their citizens’ backs in order to sell their countries out to the Muslims.
On the cultural front there began a complete re-writing of history, which was first undertaken during the 1970s in European universities. This process was ratified by the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe in September 1991, at its meeting devoted to “The Contribution of the Islamic Civilisation to European culture.” It was reaffirmed by French President Jacques Chirac in his address of April 8, 1996 in Cairo, and reinforced by Romano Prodi, president of the powerful European Commission, the EU’s “government,” and later Italian Prime Minister, through the creation of a Foundation on the Dialogue of Cultures and Civilisations. This foundation was to control everything said, written and taught about Islam in Europe.
There is a movement to control information about Islam, including what is taught in schools, all under the auspices of European leaders working behind the scenes to give their countries over to Islam.
More from page 284:
Eurabia is a novel new entity. It possesses political, economic, religious, cultural, and media components, which are imposed on Europe by powerful governmental lobbies. While Europeans live within Eurabia’s constraints, outside of a somewhat confused awareness, few are really conscious of them on a daily basis.
This Eurabian policy, expressed in obscure wording, is conducted at the highest political levels and coordinated over the whole of the European Union. It spreads an anti-American and anti-Semitic Euro-Arab sub-culture into the fiber of every social, media and cultural sector. Dissidents are silenced or boycotted. Sometimes they are fired from their jobs, victims of a totalitarian “correctness” imposed mainly by the academic, media and political sectors.
Okay, this is important because the reason those kids were targeted on that island is because they were attending a Labor Party summer camp. ABB makes this clear in the beginning of the manifesto, but key to the Eurabia conspiracy is the idea that cultural Marxists, the people responsible for political correctness, are the ones permitting Muslim immigration into Norway. By taking out future Socialists whom he thought would continue to harm his country, ABB was trying to stem the tide of immigration that Bat Ye’or insists comes from this conspiracy of European leaders.
And it goes on and on. To save the reader from having to read more long quotes on this matter, here is the summary: Europe’s leaders have sold out Europeans to the Muslims, who are evil and seek to destroy a Western identity. All non-Muslims will be forced into a state of “dhimmitude,” a neologism coined by Ye’or to express the perpetual second-class citizenship and a state of near-slavery that she believes Muslims will inflict on non-Muslims. Fjordman believes Bat Ye’or’s conspiracy theory and therefore so does ABB.
What I later found so interesting about Fjordman’s belief in this conspiracy theory is that there are glimpses of a reasonable mind (and note I did not say rational – conspiracy theorists are some of the most rational people on the planet but they are seldom reasonable). There are moments when, as I read, I could see the wheels turning in his mind and if he had just let them turn a bit more, he might have come out on the other side of the machine. But alas, he got stuck. For instance, Fjordman is strangely aware of how dumb his particular brand of conspiracy sounds but is unaware that he is just like every other True Believer out there in how he rationalizes his ideas. From page 280:
I decided to write this essay after a comment from a journalist, not a Leftist by my country’s standards, who dismissed Eurabia as merely a conspiracy theory, one on a par with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I do not disagree with the fact that conspiracy theories exist, nor that they can be dangerous. After all, the Protocols and the
Dolchstosslegende, or “stab in the back myth” – the idea that Germany didn’t lose WW1 but was betrayed by Socialists, intellectuals and Jews – helped pave the way for Adolf Hitler and the Nazis before WW2.
So he’s aware of conspiracy theories. He understands that they exist and that others look at the Eurabia conspiracy and dismiss it along with other conspiracies. But like all True Believers, his conspiracy is different, somehow, than all the other conspiracy theories. As much as I loathe his ideology and as much as I mock and deride his beliefs, I also know that there is a critical mind in there somewhere that has been corrupted by hate because there is no way anyone could know the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a load of pants but not be able to see how Eurabia is the same unless one is deliberately shutting down the part of one’s mind that permits reasonable comparisons.
We continue seeing how strangely his mind works on page 280:
However, what puzzles me is that it is a widely-held belief of many (not just in the Islamic world but in Europe and even in the United States) that the terror attacks that brought down the Twin Towers in New York City on September 11th 2001 were really a controlled demolition staged by the American government and then blamed on Muslims. I have seen this thesis talked about many times in Western media. While it is frequently (though not always) dismissed and mocked, it is least mentioned.
In contrast, Eurabia – which asserts that the Islamisation of Europe didn’t happen merely by accident but with the active participation of European political leaders – is hardly ever referred to at all, despite the fact that it is easier to document. Does the notion of Eurabia hit too close to home? Perhaps it doesn’t fit with the anti-American disposition of many journalists? Curiously enough, even those left-leaning journalists who are otherwise critical of the European Union because of its free market elements never write about Eurabia.
Fjordman doesn’t seem to understand that only a small number of people believe that 9/11 was an inside job, and that when it comes up, it is being brought up and discussed by the self-same people who believe in it. Aside from Charlie Sheen and the whole “Loose Change” crowd, people feel no need to deflect blame for the terrorist destruction of the World Trade Center from the Muslim terrorists responsible for it. Therefore it is not that unusual that Eurabia seldom comes up either. The reason no one reputable mentions Eurabia as truth is because it is, as I said already, The Protocols of the Elders of Mecca. Even though there are some news outlets willing to let Glenn Beck shit up the place and therefore may have an open-door lunatic policy, most of them are not, in fact, run by anti-Western freedom haters who want to see the entire world taken over by political correctness so that the Muslims can enslave us all. Rather, people don’t discuss it outside of Jihad Watch and The Gates of Brussels because most people are not bigoted paranoiacs. Even better, they aren’t saying it because Islam is not trying to take over the world. The reason it is “hardly ever referred to at all” is because it does not exist
Fjordman has really swallowed Bat Ye’or’s conspiracy theory hook, line, and sinker, to the point that he simply cannot see that this belief set is really a different side of the same coin used as currency in race hate and bigotry directed at Jews. From page 296:
According to Bat Ye’or, fear of awakening opposition to EU policy toward the Arab Mediterranean countries led to the repression of all discussion of the economic problems and difficulties of integration caused by massive immigration. Any criticism of Muslim immigration is basically brushed off as being “just like the Jews were talked about in Nazi Germany,” a ridiculous but effective statement.
It’s not ridiculous. It’s the same goddamned hate that has plagued mankind since we evolved into differing tribes. The arguments are the same – the Muslims want their own law system derived from their beliefs, they won’t assimilate, they commit crimes against native Europeans, etc. Just replace the world Muslim with Jew and we can reenact those same accusations of 70 years ago.
Bat Ye’or’s acolytes are no different than anyone else who bases their life around bizarre conspiracy. From page 296 we see the victim mentality that all these True Believers seem to possess:
Professional harassment, boycott and defamation punish those who dare to openly challenge the Politically Correct discourse. According to Bat Ye’or, this has led to the development of a type of “resistance press” as if Europe were under the “occupation” of its own elected governments.
What harm has befallen Bat Ye’or, or the people at Gates of Brussels, or Robert Spencer, or anyone else for speaking this nonsense other than earning the censure of their peers? If you say stupid things that have no basis in reality, people mock you. That’s life, not persecution for your beliefs. Moreover, I find it amusing that these folk consider themselves as equivalent to “resistance press.” They are tilting at windmills and are trying to give their bigoted conspiracy a patina of respectability, harking back to the real resistances that fought against actual occupying armies, like the French during WWII. This is not a resistance press that requires pseudonyms for personal safety – it’s a bunch of miserable people publishing bigotry as history, many of whom don’t want to eat the shit sandwich that being bigots would earn them. Bat Ye’or is no Lucie Aubrac. It is offensive that anyone would even try to associate this mess of hate with movements that genuinely did fight against occupying armies. But they must adopt this guise of being the voice for freedom, persecuted for their beliefs, lest they have to face the fact that their base beliefs are rejected because they are stupid and because they are wrong.
It’s all very sad, in a way, how such beliefs, so strange on their face, would influence anyone to believe. But they do believe. And a man killed 77 people because of the perpetuation of conspiracy theory as fact. Never forget this. ABB believed this conspiracy theory, but so do many others. The basis of the belief behind his rampage is shared by many other people.
Fjordman is a religious bigot
The force behind the Eurabia conspiracy theory is hate – bigotry aimed at a religion. Saying this in no way lessens the impact of any Muslim atrocity that may have happened. Religion is, in my atheist opinion, a shield behind which many terrible people have done terrible things. Bat Ye’or suffered a shattering upheaval because of political machinations in Egypt and calling her and those who believe her conspiracy bigots should not reduce the perception of the impact bad politics had on her life. But regardless of how she came to have the ideas she does, the basis of this conspiracy theory is hate and Fjordman definitely has the hate.
Hate makes it impossible to see any blood except that which is on your enemy’s hands. Fjordman has some odd ideas about the sanctity of other religions in comparison to Islam. From page 58:
Moreover, there are hundreds of calls in the Koran for fighting against people of other faiths. “If it is correct that many Muslims view the Koran as the literal words of God, which cannot be interpreted or rephrased, then we have a problem. It is indisputable that the texts encourage terror and violence. Consequently, it must be reasonable to ask
Muslims themselves how they relate to the text, if they read it as it is,” says Magaard.
Fjordman cops to the fact that he is not a Christian, though he thinks Christian Identity could play some role in ending Muslim immigration, so perhaps he has no idea the hilarity that ensues when one engages in comparative religious examinations of the horrors religions espouse. But suffice it to say that for every line from the Koran one uses to damn the Muslims, I can find find an equally appalling line from the Bible and/or Torah to damn the Christians and/or Jews. Let us ask all the Christians and Jews how they relate to the text, if they read it as it is. That should be fun and illuminating.
More of the same, plus some bizarre rhetoric from page 337:
Muslims are stuck with their problems and their corrupt leaders and blame everybody else for their own failures because they can never admit they are caused by deep flaws in their culture. We shouldn’t make the same mistake. Europeans export wine; Arabs export whine. That’s the way it should be.
This comes from a section wherein Fjordman is postulating that the Europeans have been too weak and have the weak government they deserve. The part I am focusing on here is the statement that Muslims never admit they cause problems and that throwaway line about wine and whine. Ugh. This is ridiculous stereo-typing (based on what – I had no idea that Muslim are considered whiny – none that I know are whiny…) and really helps the case that Fjordman is just a bigoted, strange little man willing to say outrageous things because he hates. And if all Arabs exported was whine then why all the fear? What does it say about Fjordman that he has such hate for a group that is evidently so weak he uses words like “whine” to describe them? Of course, that was a rhetorical throwaway line, but still, it is quite grating.
Then Fjordman goes on to quote a commenter from some anti-Islam sites:
Thus, from a purely economic point of view, Islam seems to be a collective of people who live by the ethos of “beg, borrow or steal.” So why do we, the capitalist countries, who do not believe in offering anyone a free lunch, subsidise the most lazy yet aggressive bunch of people on God’s planet, who are bent on subverting our democratic system? The nub is, how has it come about, that the natural progression of the most advanced civilisation on earth is towards stupidity?
Yep, from the entirety of all the Muslims on this Earth we can safely say that every single one of them is a beggar, a moocher or a thief. This is very sound reasoning and no one should ever question when anyone makes huge, sweeping, bigoted statements like this.
But Fjordman and those he quotes don’t let anything like facts get in their way of Islamic demonization. From page 414:
Former Muslim Ali Sina[51] claims that even in the USA, which has a smaller Muslim population and less social security benefits than Western Europe, Muslims are a huge drain on the economy: “Because about 2 million Muslims live in America and among them there are some who are terrorists, Americans are forced to expend hundreds of billions of
dollars on homeland security. I have no idea how much is the actual cost. Let us be conservative and say it costs only $200 billion dollars per year. In reality it could be many times more. Does anyone have any idea? With just $200 billion dollars, every Muslim, including their children cost the taxpayers $100,000 dollars per year. This is the real “contribution” of Muslims to America Mr. President. Once you add the cost of the real damage caused in terrorist attacks, such as to planes, buildings, etc. this cost will be much higher.
Just for the record, power needs no excuse to crawl up people’s asses. Seriously, if the TSA had not been the agency that more or less destroyed the Bill of Rights, some other government agency would have. I know, I know, I am totally sounding like Alex Jones. We all have our weaknesses. But back to this quote. It is a quote that assumes there are Muslim terrorists living in America and that is why the Department of Homeland Security is doing all that it does. It assumes the number of terrorists in the USA is the sum total of Muslims in the USA, because it breaks down the amount spent by the DHS per Muslim. And then the number spent by the DHS is also speculative. Fact, schmacts! Let’s yell about terror and money and stuff because who cares about real numbers and accurate statistics?
From page 523:
As I have demonstrated above, it is perfectly accepted, and widely practiced, by Jihadist Muslims to lie to non-Muslims about their true agenda. I have also demonstrated that the relationship between radicals and so-called moderates is a lot closer than we would like to think. At best, they share the goals of establishing sharia around the world, and differ only over the means to achieve this goal. At worst, they are allies in a good cop, bad cop game to extort concession after concession from the infidels. Moreover, even those who genuinely are moderate and secular in their approach may later change, or their children may change. This can be triggered by almost anything, either something in the news or a crisis in their personal lives, which will create a desire to become a better, more pious Muslim. The few remaining moderates can easily be silenced by violence from their more ruthless, radical counterparts.
So, even the moderate Muslims are scary because they are some sort of religious Manchurian Candidate wherein they can be triggered into extremism and violence. We have to fear them even if they are not fearsome because they may become fearsome. I don’t know how anyone could look at this and not see that this is nothing but religious bigotry.
Fjordman sees the Muslims as relentless baby-making machines, echoing language that I have read condemning Italian and Irish immigrants in the United States 100 years ago, and Hispanics today. From page 286:
The growth of the Islamic population is explosive. According to some, one out of three babies born in France is a Muslim. Hundreds of Muslim ghettos already de facto follow sharia, not French law. Some believe France will quietly become a Muslim country, while others are predicting a civil war in the near future.
I am unsure how Fjordman comes by these statistics and lack the will to find out. As far as I know, France does not collect birth information using religion statistics. However, given that Muslims make up 9% of the French population, it is hard to see how the Muslim women included in that 9% can possibly have so many children each year that they make up 33% of the total births in any given year. Oh yes, of course, the French must be deliberately misrepresenting the number of Muslims because they are a part of the Eurabia conspiracy. Or the Muslims have babies in litters like cats. Either way, this is irrational bigotry.
Fjordman also has a hard time explaining why some religions pass inspection with him and why some don’t. From page 295:
What the European Union does, however, is to treat Islam as a traditional, European religion on par with Christianity and Judaism. This is a crucial component of Eurabian thinking and practice.
At what point does a religion’s presence obtain a traditional status. Though Muslims were expelled from Spain, there was a significant Muslim presence left behind. How long does it take to become a tradition? Christians invaded Scandinavia, replacing pagan and heathen ideals with Christian ideals in some quarters and Scandinavia has only been “Christian” for 800-1200 years. If Christianity is considered a traditional religion for all of Europe, then why not Islam? Well, because Bat Ye’or’s conspiracy theory has led Fjordman to conclude that Muslims are evil. (And while I am aware of some of Fjordman’s story that he told when he revealed his real name, I am doing my best to stick to the manifesto. However, I will say that while Fjordman has lived in Egypt and studied there, and was appalled by some Muslim reaction to the 9/11 attacks, such ideas are worthless in determining a unified outlook in the world. Taking the specific and making it the general for all people within an entire faith is a bad way of forming ideas.)
I’ll end this section on Fjordman’s religious bigotry with this quote from page 335:
There is, however, a big difference: The Islamic world always has been our enemy and always will be. China and Russia do not have to be our enemies, although our relations will be complicated because of their size and their own Great Power ambitions. We can, at best, persuade them that directly opposing us isn’t going to pay off.
So, we can reason with the Chinese and the Russians so they will not stand in the West’s way as they contain the Muslim Menace, but we can’t reason with the Muslims. Interesting… But even more interesting is the notion that the Islamic world was, is and always will be our enemy. See, this is why this is nothing but hate. This mindset is no different than those who insist that the beliefs of the Jews mean they will always be the enemy of civilization. But when you are in the depths of such beliefs you can’t see how they are the same hatred perpetuating itself over and over and over.
I don’t even have the time or desire to discuss all the various Muslim fears that Fjordman has, but he thinks the Muslim Brotherhood has a multi-point plan to take over Europe. Investments in Europe evidently mean they are setting the stage to have a strong financial foothold once they kill off or enslave whitey. At any rate, this is perilously close to New World Order bullshit because at this point, international trade and foreign investments are a part of the world economy. Get over it. There were many times I wanted to tell Fjordman to pull up his socks and get over it – the world has changed, and as much as he demeans the tribalism of Islamic adherents, he sure cloaks himself in his own tribal identity. But seeing conflicts in thinking are not the strong point of any conspiracy theorist. I will touch more on some of Fjordman’s inconsistencies in the second part of my look at his words.
Fjordman’s bleak, urgent and violent rhetoric is alarming
I have to state pretty clearly that Fjordman was pulled into this against his will. Evidently he never exchanged ideas directly with ABB and declined to meet him. In a way he didn’t ask for this. But in a way, he did. Information placed on the Internet reaches all kinds of readers and in writing in such a vehement, angry manner, using terminology for war, battle, and siege, as well as stating the urgency of the dire situation in Europe, it is not unreasonable to look at his words, note their inclusion in the manifesto, and understand the role his rhetoric played in ABB’s rampage. I don’t agree with some bloggers that Fjordman bears a criminal culpability, and he may not even bear a moral culpability. But there is no way to look objectively at his words and not come to the conclusion that they could have been read by a fellow True Believer as a call to arms.
I have seen some pundits say that if Fjordman is to bear any responsibility then the Beatles must be held responsible for the actions of the Manson family or that Salinger must be responsible for the murder of John Lennon since Mark David Chapman was carrying a copy of The Catcher in the Rye when he shot him. That is all nonsense. Paul McCartney did indeed write a song about the fall of a civilization but at no point did he say that there was to be a race war and that someone needed to start it off by killing a pregnant starlet. And god only knows what Chapman extrapolated from a book about a kid who hated phonies but at no point did Salinger indicate that perhaps the way to rid the world of phonies was to shoot a politically active rock star. However, Fjordman does, in fact, indicate that there needs to be some drastic action to stop Muslim immigration, which he sees as a part of a larger scheme to create a Eurabia wherein white Europeans are enslaved by Muslims, and he uses violent language as he shares his ideas. More importantly, he made a very convincing case that there is no hope for change via the political process or even peaceful demonstrations, which would lead some True Believers to think that the only method by which change could be achieved is the individual acting against the state.
At some point, the blogging world is going to have to understand that our words mean something, that they have overt meaning plus subtext, and that when information is so easily disseminated, words laden with subtext may reach an audience that may not know you were writing hypothetically. I can understand why Fjordman went into hiding. The horror of this situation alone has to be killing him.
But none of that changes the fact that the proof for his exhortations for urgent action, possibly violent, are clear as day in his words. Though he did not state outright that one should kill members of the Labor Party in Norway (cultural Marxists) in order to stem the tide of Islamification, he engages in fear-mongering, uses violent language that gives lie to the idea that he did not tacitly encourage violence, and proves his case that things are beyond hope. Did he mean to set off ABB? Of course not. This is less an insinuation about Fjordman’s role inspiring the Norway murders than it is an attempt to show those who still have not made up their mind about the text that there is a strong sense of urgency and a call to violence that cannot be denied simply with good intentions.
I want to begin with some quotes, offered with no commentary. In this entire section, for all quotes that have words in bold, the emphasis is mine. We start on page 322:
I know many Americans, and Europeans, too, have more or less written off Western Europe as lost to Islam already. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t think this too sometimes, but I do see encouraging signs of a real shift of public opinion beneath the surface. Judging from information such as the extremely high number of Germans hostile to Islam, I still believe, or at least hope, that Europe can be saved.
But this hope hinges on the complete and utter destruction of the European Union The EU must die, or Europe will die. It’s that simple.
From page 331:
It is conceivable that Islam in some generations will cease to be a global force of any significance, but in the meantime it will be a constant source of danger to its neighbours, from Europe through India to Southeast Asia. The good news is that Islam may not be able to achieve the world dominance it desires. The bad news is that it may be able to achieve a world war. We can only cage it as much as possible and try to prevent this from happening.
More dire language from page 378:
I’ve suggested before that native Europeans face three enemies simultaneously when fighting against the Islamisation of their lands: Enemy 1 is the anti-Western bias of our media and academia, which is a common theme throughout the Western world. Enemy 2 are Eurabians and EU-federalists, who deliberately break down established nation states in favor of a pan-European superstate. Enemy 3 are Muslims. The Netherlands from 2001 to 2007 is a clear case in point where enemies 1, 2 and 3 have successfully cooperated on breaking down the spirit of the native population through intimidation and censorship and by squashing any opposition to continued mass immigration.
From page 613:
Scandinavia is a Utopia lost. Previously quiet Scandinavian nations now suffer Islamic terror threats and death threats[28] against people criticising Islam. Norway celebrates 100 years as an independent state[29] this year. Judging from this new discrimination act and the runaway Muslim immigration, perhaps the anniversary should be called “From independence to colonisation”. At the same time as their women are no longer safe in the streets because of immigrant gangs, the authorities respond by making Norwegians defacto second-rate citizens in their own country. They use their own people as stepping stones for their personal careers in the UN bureaucracy.
From page 520:
Centre Democrat Ben Haddou[27], a member of Copenhagen’s City Council, has stated: “It’s impossible to condemn sharia. And any secular Muslim who claims he can is lying. Sharia also encompasses lifestyle, inheritance law, fasting and bathing. Demanding that Muslims swear off sharia is a form of warfare against them.”
Read that statement again, and read it carefully. Muslims in the West consider it “a form of warfare against them” if they have to live by our secular laws, not their religious laws. Will they then also react in violent ways to this “warfare” if they don’t get their will? Moreover, since sharia laws ultimately require the subjugation of non-Muslims, doesn’t “freedom of religion” for Muslims essentially entail the freedom to make non-Muslims second-rate citizens in their own countries?
It goes on and on and on. From page 342:
This war by Islam against Europe, the West and indeed mankind has been going on for more than 1300 years. This is the third major Jihad, the third Islamic attempt to subdue the heartland of the West. Although I cannot prove this, I have a very strong feeling that this will also be the last attempt. There will be no fourth Jihad. Either Muslims will win this time, or Islam itself will be handed a defeat and a blow so powerful that it may never recover from it. This is perhaps the longest, continuous war in human history. And it’s about to be decided within the coming decades. I’m not sure how all of this will play out. What I do know is that it could all be decided on my watch, and I don’t want to be the weak link in something my ancestors kept intact for 1300 years.
Fjordman is making his case about the Eurabia theory – Islam is coming to get Europe. In this one passage he spells out that the time to fight is at hand, giving urgency to the situation. He calls it a war, one of the longest in human history. He says that if Islam is not crushed this time there will be no second chance. He says he does not want to be part of the reason the West succumbs to Islam. There is no way for anyone but a Fjordman apologist not to see the implications in his ideas and his loaded word choice.
Just some more examples of the descriptive language Fjordman uses as he discusses his conspiracy theory. From page 603:
Since its inception, Islam has been waging an aggressive war against the rest of mankind, with the stated purpose of bringing every single human being on earth under Islamic rule. Infidels have been presented with only three options: Convert to Islam, die, or submit under Islamic rule as a dhimmi, a second-rate citizen in your own country subject to serious financial pressure, constant verbal humiliations and frequent physical abuse. Islam hasn’t changed in the last 1400 years.
This entire quote is incendiary in the mind of anyone who believes in Eurabia conspiracy, and ABB was definitely a True Believer.
How about this from page 636:
According to Politikerbloggen[9], AFA have produced a manual about how to use violence in order to paralyze and hurt their opponents, and they encourage their members to study it closely. Meanwhile, senior members of law enforcement are too busy waving plastic penises to care. It’s all for tolerance, and then there is this small group at the back, behind the police, the media and the cultural and political establishment, ready to assault, beat up and hospitalise anybody deemed to be insufficiently tolerant.
The people who want tolerance will beat people to a pulp to get it. With incendiary words like this one wonders if ABB decided to fight Fjordman’s fire with fire.
The urgency that Fjordman brings to making the case for Eurabia is also strong and persuasive to a True Believer. From page 677:
Several recent incidents have demonstrated that Muslims are now trying to apply these dhimmi rules to the entire Western world. The most important one was the burning of churches and embassies triggered by the Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad. This was, down to the last comma, exactly the way Muslims would treat the persecuted non-Muslims in their own countries. The cartoon Jihad indicated that Muslims now felt strong enough to apply sharia rules to Denmark, and by extension NATO. Hardly anybody in the mainstream Western media made any attempts to explain this to the public.
We are hurtling toward slave status now, this very minute. The Denmark cartoon incident proves it, in Fjordman’s eyes.
More about the cartoon situation in Denmark. From page 593:
The status given to non-Muslims who accept being second-rate citizens, dhimmis, under Islamic rule is technically referred to as “protected.” During the Cartoon Jihad, the leftwing coalition government demonstrated in public that Norwegian authorities did not control the security of their citizens, and thus had to accept Muslim intervention to secure their safety. This amounted to the acceptance of Islamic rule according to sharia law, a view which was subsequently strengthened by payments to Muslims at home and abroad. Undoubtedly these payments offered by Mr. Giske on behalf of the government were viewed by Muslims as jizya, the “protection money” non-Muslims are required to pay in willing submission (Koran, 9:29) as a sign of their inferior status vis-a-vis Islam, as a compensation for not being slain.
When the government in Norway failed to protect its citizens from Islamic backlash, they effectively sold out Norwegians into a state of protected, Islamic slavery and tacitly accepted Sharia law. This is clearly making the case that urgent action is needed, right here and right now, because the government has already made Norwegian citizens Islamic slaves. Christ, as I reread this, I sort of think that Fjordman should kiss the ground that this did not turn out worse than it did.
Here’s some more urgency from page 600:
My bet is still on Britain, or possibly Denmark, as the first Western country to face a civil war due to Muslim immigration, but the Netherlands is a potential candidate as well.
Muslim immigration will cause civil war in Europe. A True Believer and a patriot would want to avoid civil war, using any means to prevent it.
And for the love of sanity, bear in mind that I am only culling a small percentage of the alarmist quotes from Fjordman available to me. From page 586:
Sweden was presented during the Cold War as a middle way between capitalism and Communism. When this model of a society collapses — and it will collapse, under the combined forces of Islamic Jihad, the European Union, multiculturalism and ideological overstretch — it is thus not just the Swedish state that will collapse but the symbol of Sweden, the showcase of an entire ideological world view. I wrote two years ago[3] that if the trend isn’t stopped, the Swedish nation will simply cease to exist in any meaningful way during the first half of this century. The country that gave us Bergman, ABBA and Volvo could become known as the Bosnia of northern Europe, and the “Swedish model” will be one of warning against ideological madness, not one of admiration. I still fear I was right in that assessment.
Ignore the trivialization of centuries of Swedish society summed up in “Bergman, Abba and Volvo.” Were those things not to have existed, I am sure the world and Sweden would have been just fine. Just pay attention to the panic implicit in the idea that Sweden is near collapse and may cease to exist unless something is done.
Some more panicky information for the True Believer, from page 521:
It is true that Jihad is not exclusively about violence, but it is very much about the constant threat of violence. Just like you don’t need to beat a donkey all the time to make it go where you want it to, Muslims don’t have to hit non-Muslims continuously. They bomb or kill every now and then, to make sure that the infidels are always properly submissive and know who’s boss.
We are becoming donkeys who will continue to be trained by violence until we are overcome. Something needs to interrupt this training process before it is too late.
Here Fjordman is discussing the imminent fall of France to Muslims, on page 287:
The impending downfall of France is bad news for the rest of the West. What will happen to French financial resources? Above all, who will inherit hundreds of nuclear warheads? Will these weapons fall into the hands of Jihadist Muslims, too?
This is clearly setting up the idea that the world is going to be in danger of a nuclear event if something does not stop Eurabia from becoming a reality. Nuclear warheads in the hands of terrorists would make the average person jittery. Imagine how such an idea can create a sense of utter urgency in the mind of a Eurabia believer.
More of Fjordman’s charged urgency from page 326:
New anti-discrimination laws to combat Islamophobia are to be enacted, as they already have been in Norway, where Norwegians need to mount proof of their own innocence[15] if Muslim immigrants accuse them of discrimination in any form, including discriminatory speech. The EU also wants to promote an official lexicon[16] shunning offensive and culturally insensitive terms such as “Islamic terrorism.”
Ah, so now Norwegians will have to prove their innocence much like those accused of witchcraft in the 17th century, in anti-Democratic attempts to label all Norwegians Islamophobics. Again, note the urgency and overblown horror, words meant to instill fear and a need to act in the reader.
Fjordman’s sense of impending doom includes all Europeans being put to death for Islamic blasphemies:
Remember that blasphemy against Islam carries the death penalty according to sharia. Multiculturalism in Europe is about to reach its openly totalitarian phase. Those who think this is a joke can look at the Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot[13] who was arrested in 2008 for cartoons that “insulted” Muslims. Several documents that are publicly available (but little known by the general public because they are never referred to by the mainstream media) state that the EU should “harmonise” the education and legal systems with the Arab “partner countries” within the coming decade. This is being negotiated as we speak, behind our backs.
So, Europeans will one day face the death penalty for criticizing Islam. Act now or we will all face the sword for criticizing Islam. According to Fjordman, the details are being decided now behind everyone’s backs. Can we all agree that this would create a sense of urgency to act now in a True Believer?
Now here’s where things get sticky and ugly for anyone who really wants to maintain that Fjordman’s intent was never to inspire anyone to commit acts of the sort ABB committed. It is true that Fjordman describes a plan to defeat cultural Marxists and stop Muslim immigration. From page 330:
The best way to deal with the Islamic world is to have as little to do with it as possible. We should ban Muslim immigration. This could be done in creative and indirect ways, such as banning immigration from nations with citizens known to be engaged in terrorist activities. We should remove all Muslim non-citizens currently in the West. We should also change our laws to ensure that Muslim citizens who advocate sharia, preach Jihad, the inequality of “infidels” and of women should have their citizenship revoked and be deported back to their country of origin.
Okay, within the confines of his irrational, bigoted hated for Islam, this is not that incendiary. Changing laws sounds like a pretty middle of the road option. This would still be a bit iffy given the Eurabia theory that is behind it but overall one does not want to shake Fjordman by his shoulders until he sees reason.
Well, it would be somewhat acceptable if he did not go on at length, detailing in depth the fact that changing laws is impossible, that every reasonable move the Islamophobe in Europe can make is not only doomed to failure, but could in fact, be criminalized. Fjordman unfortunately makes his case about the dire, irrevocable situation Europe is in, being at the mercy of governments in collusion with Muslims. In the face of all that he writes, it is impossible for a True Believer in Eurabia to walk away with the sense that anything legal or sensible will end the plight of the native Europeans.
Here’s an example of this, from page 599:
In March 2007, native Dutch residents of the city of Utrecht rioted to protest against harassment by Muslim youths and government inaction to stop this. The authorities immediately suppressed the riots by sealing off the area and installing surveillance cameras to control Dutch non-Muslims, but they have done virtually nothing to address the underlying problem of violence from immigrant gangs. The case is far from unique.
Such incidents demonstrate that the authorities throughout Western Europe are now dedicated to implementing continued mass immigration and multiculturalism no matter what the natives think. If they object, they will be silenced. The Dutch voted “no” by a very large margin to the proposed EU Constitution that will formally dismantle their country, as did Irish and French voters, but they are simply ignored. At the same time, the EU elites obediently respond to calls from Islamic countries to ban “stereotypes and prejudice” targeting Islam. European political elites implement the agendas of our enemies and ignore the interests of their own people. They are thus collaborators and traitors and should be treated accordingly.
So from this example we see that peaceful protests do not work and result in an Orwellian crackdown on the protesters. Any attempt to speak out will result in being silenced. The political officials reject the will and the vote of the people and are allowing the enemy to take over. The governments are full of Islamic collaborators. What good will voting or waking up the “sheeple” do if the will of the voters is ignored anyway? What is the only option left for the patriotic True Believer when even peaceful protest is taken from him?
From page 599:
In Brussels, Belgium, gangs of Muslim immigrants harass the natives on a daily basis. We have had several recent cases where native girls have been gang raped by immigrants in the heart of the EU capital, yet when the natives wanted to protest against the Islamisation of their continent on September 11th 2007, the demonstration was banned by the Socialist mayor of Brussels, whose ruling party is heavily infiltrated by Muslims. Those who attempted to carry on with a peaceful protest were arrested by the police.
So, gang rapes are common and peaceful protest against Islamization is criminalized. The options for a patriot who wants to save his countrywomen from violent rape are becoming more and more limited in Fjordman’s rhetoric.
Then we have this strange passage from page 590:
Is it just a coincidence that the one country on the European continent that has avoided war for the longest period of time, Sweden, is also arguably the one Western nation where Political Correctness has reached the worst heights? Maybe the prolonged period of peace has created an environment where layers of ideological nonsense have been allowed to pile up for generations without stop. I don’t know what Sweden will look like a generation from now, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be viewed as a model society. And if the absence of war is one of the causes of its current weakness, I fear that is a problem that will soon be cured.
Of course Fjordman means Sweden got soft and allowed the cultural Marxists to run amok because of peace, but it can be seen as a call to arms to end the peace in Scandinavia. In this sense, peace means cultural death and ABB certainly interrupted any sense of Norwegian peace. And even if that is not the case, the last line implies a vicious war with Islam looms, another heavy idea for a True Believer who thinks he is in a cultural war with Islam.
More about peace and war, from page 522:
Furthermore, the Islamic world has not only the attitude of open war. There’s also war by infiltration, as we can see in Western countries now. Is there a possibility to end this dance of war? According to Moshe Sharon, the answer is, “No. Not in the foreseeable future. What we can do is reach a situation where for a few years we may have relative quiet.”
Fjordman makes the case that there are several ways that the Muslims are committing Jihad against the West, one of them being immigration and excessive child-bearing. So even in times of peace, the warrior must be preparing for war with Islam. Even if the Muslims in some areas are not creating the panoply of problems Fjordman talks about, they are quietly infiltrating and the canny Westerner must be ready, even in the face of “relative quiet.”
This bit from page 588 is a call to arms, pure and simple:
Why does the government dispense with the social contract and attack its own people like this? Well, for starters, because it can. Sweden is currently arguably the most politically repressive and totalitarian country in the Western world. It also has the highest tax rates. That could be a a coincidence, but I’m not sure that it is. The state has become so large and powerful that is has become an autonomous organism with a will of its own. The people are there to serve the state, not vice versa. And because state power penetrates every single corner of society, including the media, there are no places left to mount a defence if the state decides to attack you.
The governments are attacking their own people because they have no accountability anymore. The state is so large and so ominous that there is nothing anyone can do if the state decides to turn against them. The implication, of course, is that a True Believer must launch an offensive because all defensive moves are doomed to failure.
From page 587:
This is a government that knows perfectly well that their people will become a minority in their own country, yet is doing nothing to stop this. On the contrary. Pierre Schori, Minister for immigration, during a parliamentary debate in 1997 said that: “Racism and xenophobia should be banned and chased [away],” and that one should not accept “excuses, such as that there were flaws in the immigration and refugee policies.”
In other words: It should be viewed as a crime for the native population not to assist in wiping themselves out.
That is hardcore, right there, the idea that failure to cooperate will be a crime. If failing to cooperate is a crime, then it makes any other sort of action the only moral course, since we seem to be dealing in black and white. And once the case is made that there is no way to affect the government as they ignore the voters (which one presumes would make it difficult to “throw the bums out” as we used to say in America), that they turn against the native citizens at every provocation, that they have criminalized protest AND may criminalize non-compliance, there really is no course of action left for a True Believing patriot than to act against the government in a direct offensive.
There is no hope of change via the democratic process, from page 376:
In 2007, former German president Roman Herzog warned that parliamentary democracy was under threat from the European Union. Between 1999 and 2004, 84 percent of the legal acts in Germany – and the majority in all EU member states – stemmed from Brussels. According to Herzog, “EU policies suffer to an alarming degree from a lack of democracy and a de facto suspension of the separation of powers.” Despite this, the EU was largely a non-issue during the 2005 German elections. One gets the feeling that the real issues of substance are kept off the table and are not subject to public debate. National elections are becoming an increasingly empty ritual. The important issues have already been settled beforehand behind closed doors.
If there is no way to change things via a political process, is it surprising ABB took to his guns and bombs? Fjordman is raising these issues with the intention of waking up Westerners but if there is nothing legal they can do to stop immigration, what else is there for them to do when rhetoric wakes them up? Blog about it? Amusingly, that will come up in my discussion of ABB, a section wherein he takes a small jab at those awake and still writing and not acting.
In fact, here is a little snippet of Fjordman’s own strange, backhanded criticism of blogging. I will touch on his other inconsistencies in part two. From page 377:
In the eyes of American theorist Noam Chomsky, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.” This is undoubtedly true, which is why it’s strange that Chomsky thinks that the Internet, currently the freest medium of all, is “a hideous timewaster.”
And yet Fjordman kept writing about all these horrors in a hideously timewasting manner. One wonders if ABB was trying to best his teacher by not wasting time.
There is no middle road for the Eurabia conspiracy True Believer to trust even mainstream Muslims, from pages 518-519:
Examples such as these leave non-Muslims with a very powerful dilemma: How can we ever trust assurances from self-proclaimed moderate Muslims when deception of non-Muslims is so widespread, and lying to infidels is an accepted and established way ofhiding Islamic goals? The answer, with all its difficult implications, is: We can’t.
Does this mean that ALL Muslims are lying about their true agenda, all of the time? No,of course not. Some are quite frank about their intentions.
So, even the moderate Muslims are lying about their true intentions and the only ones not lying are the ones telling the West to their faces that they plan to defeat them. Doesn’t really leave a lot of wiggle room for negotiations. People may be willing to say that Fjordman and writers like him are trying to wake up Westerners but to what avail? In the process of making their case for Eurabia conspiracy theory, writers like Fjordman painted themselves into corners. Fjordman gave lip service to changing the situation via changing laws but goes into excruciating depth about how it is impossible to do that to which he gave lip service.
It’s sad, in a way. Fjordman proved the Eurabia theory so well that his acolytes had no choice, if they wanted to change things, but to act violently. Of course, Fjordman was engaging in rhetoric. All politics is rhetoric, it seems at times. People who bloviate about conspiracy theory mainly want to be believed, and belief in the theory, the comaraderie of being among people whom you think are not deluded and see the world as you see it is one of the heady reasons conspiracy theory will never go away. It is comforting to have others who believe as you do, and there is a lovely sense of arrogance wherein all those people know they are right and the others are wrong. This arrogance fuels endless debates, it fuels political action, and when those arrogant folk throw around violent, urgent rhetoric that offers no peaceful recourse, they should not be surprised when someone who believes them takes action.
So we come to end of Fjordman: Part One. Come back in a couple of days for Fjordman: Part Two, where I will discuss things like Fjordman’s take on feminism, some of his strange notions, and other elements to his writing, like his misuse of literature and popular culture in his articles. Next week I will post my discussion of ABB, but I need to mention again that I find Fjordman so much more interesting than ABB. Don’t be surprised if my analysis of Fjordman’s words far outweighs my analysis of ABB’s words.
Since I suspect these entries may attract new readers , please take a moment to read my comment policy. And welcome! Be sure to tune back in on Thursday for more from 2083.
![The “Allah is the Moon-God” Nonsense Could be the Stupidest Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Theory Yet, Page V [Conclusion]](http://www.loonwatch.com/wp-content/themes/premiumnews-new/functions/thumb.php?src=wp-content/uploads/2011/08/crescent.jpg&w=100&h=57&zc=1&q=90)
acing the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. stands the Jefferson Building, the main building of the Library of Congress, the world’s largest library, with holdings of more than 140 million books and other printed items. The stately building, with its neoclassical exterior, copper-plated dome and marble halls, is named after Thomas Jefferson, one of the “founding fathers” of the United States, principal author of the 1776 Declaration of Independence and, from 1801 to 1809, the third president of the young republic. But the name also recognizes Jefferson’s role as a founder of the Library itself. As president, he enshrined the institution in law and, in 1814, after a fire set by British troops during the Anglo-American War destroyed the Library’s 3000-volume collection, he offered all or part of his own wide-ranging book collection as a replacement for the losses, commenting that “there is in fact no subject to which a member of Congress may not have occasion to refer.”
ut did reading the Qur’an influence Thomas Jefferson? That question is difficult to answer, because the few scattered references he made to it in his writings do not reveal his views. Though it may have sparked in him a desire to learn the Arabic language (during the 1770′s Jefferson purchased a number of Arabic grammars), it is far more significant that it may have reinforced his commitment to religious freedom. Two examples support this idea.
